Arthroscopic surgery often requires a surgeon to attach a length of suture material remotely to an internal body part. For example, a suture is passed through a detached tendon and is then secured to a hole or anchored in a bone. Various instruments have been developed for this purpose, many of them having an elongate configuration and low profile for facilitating use through cannulas in less invasive surgery. These devices have also typically have opposing jaws, which clamp onto either side of the tissue to be sutured. However, the various known mechanisms and configurations for loading the suture, grasping the suture, and threading a suture between the jaws shown in these prior art devices are exceedingly complex. Moreover, due to this complexity and poor design, in general, these devices have a tendency to create tangles in the suture or to simply fail to pass the suture through the tissue as intended. Many of these devices may also require the use of both hands to operate the instrument.
What is desired, therefore, is a suture passing device having a low profile that can accommodate many thicknesses of tissue, is easy to load with a suture and utilizes a mechanism that is easy and reliable for threading the suture through tissue.